The Secrets of Tree Taylor Page 9

  Now we were getting somewhere. “They fight over TV?”

  Mrs. DeShon looked at me like I had cooties. “No. They’re so loud, we can’t hear our TV.”

  “I get it. Do you know what they fight about?”

  “Everything. Him, mostly.” She felt her baby’s diaper and made a face. “Come to think of it, she never does her share of shouting. Nope. It’s him. Yelling at her for wasting money planting flowers. Then screaming at her for not watering them. He threw a hissy fit once and ripped out all her roses.” She grabbed a diaper from the laundry basket, plopped her baby onto the floor, and knelt beside it … him, or her.

  “I feel for that woman. I really do,” Mrs. DeShon continued. “No kids of her own. Just that nasty man for a husband. I made Robby go over to their house once, it got so bad.”

  “What happened?”

  I watched as she unpinned the diaper and held the pins in her mouth. Even I knew you were supposed to clean up the baby when you took off the old diaper, but she didn’t bother. She just scooped off what she could with the old diaper. Then off with the old and on with the new.

  I decided right then that I would never have kids. Especially not babies. And absolutely not boy babies. Gross.

  She waited until the pins were out of her mouth. “Robby knocked on their door. Mrs. Kinney peeked out, and my Robby said she didn’t look so good. He asked her if she was all right. She said she was fine. But he called your daddy anyways, and Doc come down to check on her. I don’t know what happened after that.”

  Mrs. DeShon picked up her baby and held him close. “If you ask me, Old Man Kinney shooting himself was about the nicest thing he ever done. I hope they keep him in the hospital a long, long time.”

  I thanked Mrs. DeShon for talking to me and told the boys bye as I left. The interview, or whatever it was, had taken a lot out of me. But I’d learned four things, and the minute I was out of the house, I pulled out my little notebook and wrote:

  The Kinneys argue and fight a lot, and Mr. K does all the shouting.

  Robby DeShon was the one who called the sheriff. Ask Sheriff what R said.

  Mr. Kinney ripped out Mrs. K’s rosebushes.

  Dad got called in to look at Mrs. Kinney.

  I felt pretty good about my background interview. Now I was ready to talk to Mrs. Kinney herself.

  18

  Straight from the Horse’s (Mrs. Kinney’s) Mouth

  I needed a strategy. I couldn’t just show up on Mrs. Kinney’s doorstep and ask her if her husband had shot himself or if she had shot him. I could ask, but I’d probably get the door slammed in my face.

  I raced home and found Eileen at the kitchen table, catching air-conditioning while she studied. “Eileen, do we have any cookies?”

  “Mom made macaroons yesterday.” She pointed to the top of the fridge.

  I loaded a paper plate with cookies and marched straight to the Kinneys’ front door and knocked three times. While I waited, I glanced back at the step where Mrs. Kinney and my dad had sat, the rifle between them.

  The door creaked, and I jumped like a rabbit.

  Mrs. Kinney peered out, looking ten years younger than when she’d stumbled out carrying that rifle. She’d trimmed her hair, and it looked less gray. She looked less gray. “May I help you?”

  “Cookies?” I said, like an idiot.

  “Excuse me?”

  I held out the macaroons. “Mom wasn’t sure if you liked coconut.” I didn’t know why I said that. It would have been true if Mom had been thinking about Mrs. Kinney when she made the coconut cookies. “We love macaroons at our house. Even Midge, our dog, can’t get enough. I thought you might like them, with Mr. Kinney in the hospital and all. Well, some of them. Eileen may have eaten some already. Maybe not, though. She’s always on a diet.” I shut up and wondered if Randy had ever started an interview with macaroons.

  “That’s mighty kindly of your mother. You be sure to thank her for me.” She started to shut the door.

  “Mrs. Kinney, wait!”

  The door stopped just shy of shutting. Bony, crooked fingers snaked around the doorframe like the door was a bass fiddle and Mrs. Kinney was about to play it.

  “Do you think I could talk to you for a minute?” My voice eked out so thin, you could have used it for varnish.

  “Well …” She seemed to be considering the question. “Why don’t you come in for a spell, Tree?” She held the door open until I moved inside. “Let’s have us one of your ma’s cookies. Won’t spoil your dinner none, will it?”

  “Nah. I mean, thanks. I’d love a macaroon.”

  Mrs. Kinney disappeared into the kitchen—I could see the sink from where I stood, barely inside the door. I looked around her front room and tried to take it all in. I was prepared to use Dad’s memory hooks so that later I could write about what was in the room. Dad was always teaching himself new things—how to speak French or Swahili, how to find constellations. And new memory systems. You could give my dad a list of fifty items, and he could repeat every item back to you, in the same order. Even a year later, he could list all fifty. The system had something to do with mental hooks.

  But as I scoped out the Kinneys’ front room, what struck me were the things that weren’t there. There were no pictures. No photos. Nothing at all on the walls. No television and no radio. No magazines or books that I could see.

  What did they do all day and night? Sit and stare at each other?

  I still hadn’t taken a seat. I eyed an old couch shoved against the wall, behind a coatrack. Sarah’s family used to have a couch like that—gray and made out of rough material that scratched when you sat on it and left funny patterns on your legs if you wore shorts. The arms of Mrs. Kinney’s couch looked frayed. Sarah’s mother covered the arms of their couch with little towels.

  None of the furniture in the room matched. One coffee table leg had been glued together. There were no overhead lights, just short lamps on tables and a three-way pole lamp by the big chair.

  The last place I looked was down. Because the last thing I wanted to see was Mr. Kinney’s blood. But there was no blood, just narrow wood slats where there might have been a rug before.

  “Here you go.” Mrs. Kinney came back with two macaroons on two napkins. “Sit yourself anywheres you like.” She handed me a cookie, then took the worn wooden rocker.

  I chose the straight-backed chair next to hers. Mine didn’t rock, and it sure could have used a pillow. I couldn’t help wondering if this was Mr. Kinney’s chair. Might have explained some of that grouchiness. “How’s Mr. Kinney doing?”

  “Now, that there is a good question.” She bit into her coconut macaroon.

  I followed her lead and bit into mine. “Will he be coming home soon?”

  “I reckon not.”

  We listened to each other chew for a while.

  “Coconut.” Mrs. Kinney smiled at her last bite before popping it into her mouth. “Some folks call coconut trees the tree of life.”

  “Really?” That wasn’t the way I heard it.

  “You can cook with it, use it on your skin or hair. Some around here puts it into livestock feed. Them Vietnamese make ropes out of coconut fiber. Reckon that’s where they get that tree-of-life name—using coconut for so many things.”

  I nodded. I’d have to remember to tell Dad about coconut ropes in Vietnam … if he ever spoke to me again.

  Mrs. Kinney nodded toward the other side of her chair, at a half-made basket, round on the bottom and unfinished on top. “That there basket’s got coconut for a base.”

  “Cool. Are you making that for the steam engine show? The ladies at church are making all kinds of things to sell for the missionaries overseas. Eileen and I are dressing up as prairie girls. My friend Jack says he’ll go as Jesse James, but he might be kidding. Will you be going?”

  “Well, I don’t rightly know. Haven’t given it much thought. Alfred doesn’t hold with community shindigs.” A faint smile crept across her lips. “Reckon
now I just might give it some thought.”

  Neither of us said anything for way too long. “How do you know so much about coconuts, Mrs. Kinney?”

  “I read. When I was your age, I wanted to be a librarian.”

  I glanced around but didn’t see a bookcase. A knickknack rack tucked into the far corner had shelves, but no books—just three glass figurines huddled like the Cozad kids on a cold night.

  Suddenly, I wondered if that rifle was still in the house.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Tree.” Before I got a chance to pray that she didn’t really know what I was thinking, she went on. “Nary a book in sight, eh? Alfred’s never cottoned to books. I check out everything from encyclopedias to mysteries from the library and hide every single one of them under my bed. Might ought to rethink that too, I reckon. Your daddy passes me them old copies of National Geographic time to time.”

  Another long silence passed. Mrs. Kinney may have felt it too because she returned to coconuts. “Did you know that a body’s got a ten times better chance of dying from a coconut falling on his head than from getting killed by a shark?”

  I took that as my cue to exit.

  19

  Ain’t Got Jack

  The second I stepped outside, the skies opened. Rain slapped the ground in slanted sheets. Across the road, the DeShon boys were throwing mud pies at each other.

  Before I reached the sidewalk, I was soaked to the bone. I ran home in the pounding rain, dashed to the bathroom, tore off my wet clothes, and wrapped myself in a towel. Then I headed for my bedroom to change.

  Mom stopped me in the hallway. She was still wearing her nurse’s uniform: white stockings, white shoes, white dress, and a white nurse’s cap. “Looks like you got caught in the rain.”

  “Yep.”

  “I have to start dinner. But I’m glad I ran into you. You need to try on the outfit Eileen and I got you in Chillicothe last week. It’s on your bed.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Mom.” She acted so normal. No way Dad told her about our fight.

  On my bed I found a hideous pink-and-white-striped shorts-and-top outfit that I’d never wear in public. I put it on but didn’t bother glancing in the mirror. I didn’t need to. Jack would have cracked up if he’d seen me in pink.

  Mom called to me and demanded I show her the outfit, so I trudged to the kitchen.

  “Tree! You look darling!” She turned to Eileen, who was poring over a medical book. “Eileen, don’t you think Tree looks cute in that outfit?”

  Eileen glanced at me. “Nice.” Then she went back to her studies.

  I retreated to my room. But even in my own bedroom, I felt self-conscious about the Eileenesque cutsie-shorts outfit. I probably looked eight years old in the thing. I plopped on my bed and tried to brush the tangles out of my wet hair. I wanted to take some notes on my first, brief interview with Mrs. Kinney. I wasn’t sure what to think of her. Next time, I told myself, I’d have questions prepared.

  Without warning, my bedroom door burst open. The sound sent chills through my heart. My mind flashed back to Saturday. The gunshot. The door slamming. Dad flying out.

  Mom stood in the doorway. “Tree?”

  I dropped the brush. It bounced off my bed and clunked to the floor. “What? What is it?”

  I had no idea what was wrong. But I knew something bad had happened. Something very bad. In the span of two seconds, dozens of terrifying possibilities flashed through my head, a slideshow of horror. “Is it Dad?”

  I knew that Eileen was studying in the kitchen, and Mom was standing in front of me. So something must have happened to Dad—Dad, who was angrier at me than he’d ever been.

  “No, it’s Jack,” Mom said.

  My head buzzed. Mom went blurry. Images flashed through my mind at the speed of light. Jack … shot. Jack … in an ambulance. Jack … hunched over the wheel of his car. Bloody. Jack … in a hospital, hooked up to tubes, the way Grandmother Taylor had been her last trip to the hospital.

  “Tree, he’s okay. Did you hear me?” Mom had me by the shoulders.

  “Wh-wh-what?” Did I? Did I hear her?

  “Jack’s all right, honey.”

  “He is? Honest?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry I scared you. I should have told you that first.”

  She should have. But Jack was okay. That’s what mattered. That was all that mattered.

  “I knew you’d want to know.” She let go of my shoulders. “Donna just called. There’s been a robbery.”

  “A robbery?” I’d never heard of a robbery in Hamilton. Kids took cars at night sometimes and went joyriding. But they always returned the cars, and the owners rarely knew anything was wrong. “Where? What’s it got to do with Jack?”

  “It was at the IGA, in the meat department. I guess an armed robber—”

  “The robber had a gun?”

  “Tree, listen for a minute. I’ll tell you everything I know—everything Donna knew, anyway.”

  I nodded and bit my tongue, praying she’d get on with it.

  “Okay. A man with a gun—I think Donna said he wore a mask—stormed into the IGA and demanded money from the cash register. But there wasn’t much there. So he said he wanted everybody’s watch and wallet. But there weren’t many customers in the store, thank goodness.” She stopped and sighed, like she didn’t want to tell me the rest.

  “Mom, please!”

  “He went back to the meat department and told them he wanted all of their money from their cash register.”

  “There’s no cash register in the meat department,” I protested, picturing the whole thing, with Jack in the middle. Jack, with his long apron and the silly white hat they made him wear.

  “The robber didn’t know that, honey. And when they told him they didn’t have a register in the meat department, I guess the robber didn’t believe them.”

  “What do you mean?” I could tell we were getting to the bad part. I wanted her to spit it out, not piece it out the way Donna passed along gossip.

  “He went behind the counter—the robber, that is. Shirley was there. He grabbed her in one arm and waved the gun around in his other hand, threatening to shoot her.”

  Shirley had worked at the IGA forever. She had to be a hundred years old. I waited, my heart not beating, the blood stuck in my veins.

  “I can’t imagine what Jack was thinking,” Mom said. “He came up behind them—behind the robber—and he … he stabbed him with the butcher’s knife he had in his hand.”

  I gasped.

  “Shirley got free. The robber reached for her again. And Jack tried to stop him. They struggled, and—”

  “Mom, is he okay? Is Jack okay?” I was shouting. I caught a glimpse of Eileen standing behind Mom. I hadn’t seen her come up. I could barely see Mom anymore because of the tears that wouldn’t stop.

  “I told you, Jack is all right,” Mom insisted. “He got cut, but Donna said he refused to go to the hospital. Maybe I should call your dad.” She said this last part like she’d just thought of it.

  “Did the robber get away?” I hoped he wouldn’t come back and try to get even with Jack. What if he wanted revenge?

  Mom looked at Eileen. Then she faced me and whispered, “No, Tree. The robber didn’t get away. He … he died.”

  “What?” I didn’t think I’d heard her right.

  “He’s dead. Jack killed him.”

  Before I even knew what I was doing, I was on my bike. Pedaling faster and faster. I needed to get to Jack. He was injured.

  And he’d killed somebody. How was he going to live with that? I knew him. He would never get over taking someone’s life.

  Halfway up Main Street, the rain picked up. Giant raindrops slammed my face, stinging my eyes. I had to keep blinking to see across the railroad tracks.

  Pulling into the loading dock behind the IGA, I spotted the sheriff’s car next to Jack’s. Out front, maybe a dozen people huddled under the awning.

  I dropped my bike and dashed for the bac
k door. It opened into the meat department. Right away I saw Jack talking to Sheriff Robinson.

  “Jack!” I broke into a run and didn’t stop until my arms were around him. I couldn’t stop crying.

  “Ah, Tree,” Jack said. “Not you too?”

  I let him go and stood back to see for myself that he was okay. I looked for a stab wound. His apron was smudged, but no bloodier than usual.

  “I’m fine, Tree. Settle down, okay?”

  “Looks like Donna is faster on the draw than we are.” Sheriff Robinson was holding his cowboy hat in both hands and turning it.

  I stared up at Jack. “What does he mean?” I glanced around, studying the meat room floor for signs of struggle. There was blood on the cutting blocks, but nowhere else that I could see. “What’s going on, Jack?”

  Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “I should have known. It was Donna. She called and asked for the millionth time, What’s new at work, Jack, honey? So I made something up. I didn’t think she believed me. I was teasing, for crying out loud. But she must have called the whole town.”

  Sheriff Robinson gave me a tired smile. “Sorry you got worried, Tree. We’ve been trying to call Donna and tell her what happened—what didn’t happen, more like—but the line’s busy.” He looked back to Jack. “I’ll take a drive over there.”

  “Again, Sheriff, I’m really and truly sorry. Man, I can’t even believe all the trouble from one measly phone call—”

  “Well, now you know. Don’t mess with your mother.” Sheriff Robinson slipped his hat back on. “Then I reckon I’ll be headin’ up north for my date with those bass. Your mama caught me just in time. I was walking out the door.”

  “Sorry about that,” Jack said. “Good luck fishing.”

  The sheriff nodded to us and left through the main entrance.

  The second he was gone, I turned on Jack and slugged him as hard as I’d ever hit anybody. “Don’t you ever do that again!”

  “Ow!” Jack rubbed his arm.

  “I mean it! I thought you were dead! Then I thought you killed somebody! And all the time, you were just—” I couldn’t finish. The mix inside of me felt violent, like atoms breaking loose, ready to explode into the universe in some new kind of bomb.